Conway – The Central Arkansas women's tennis team will make its third straight Southland Conference Women's Tennis Championship Tournament appearance on Friday. The Bears, who earned the sixth seed in the tournament, will take on the third-seeded Northwestern State Lady Demons at 2:00 PM at the Beaumont Municipal Tennis Complex.

Central Arkansas (9-7, 4-7 SLC) and Northwestern State (13-8, 9-2 SLC) faced off once this season, playing a highly competitive match that saw the Lady Demons take down the Bears 4-1. NSU took two of three doubles matches to secure the doubles point, before taking three of four singles matches to lock up the victory. Both singles matches that went unfinished ended with the Bears leading.

"The draw for the conference tournament is out, and we have probably the best match up for the first round that we could ask for," said Central Arkansas coach Casey Wharton.
"We played Northwestern State very close in the regular season and it came down to the last match, which we lost in the third set. I am excited to have another shot at them, and I know our girls are too. I believe it will be an absolute battle and I think if we can play our best and get a win in the first round, then winning the tournament is not out of our reach. But we have to get past Northwestern State first. I think to win we will have to play very well in doubles to gain momentum early, because that would us confidence as well as applying pressure on them to beat a team that they have never lost to. Either way, we will leave it all on the court this Friday."

The winner of Friday's match will move on to a second round battle against either no. 2 Stephen F. Austin (16-6, 10-1 SLC) or no. 7 New Orleans (14-10, 4-7 SLC) at 11:00 AM on Saturday.